The present invention is related to station probes employed in gas turbine engines.
Station probes are employed in gas turbine engines to test the operation of the engine, including monitoring of the temperature and/or pressure of the working fluid (i.e., airflow) through the engine. To gather this data, station probes are positioned at various locations circumferentially and axially within the gas turbine engine.
A typical station probe consists of a tube (known as a rake portion) that extends radially into the engine with a plurality of temperature sensors (e.g., thermocouples) and inlets opened to monitor pressure located along the length of the tube. Each temperature sensor is connected by wire to a remotely located control room. Likewise, each pressure inlet is connected via pressure line (e.g., hose) to the remotely located control room. The control room includes signal conditioning circuitry for interpreting the inputs received form the temperature sensors and/or pressure inlets. Drawbacks of this architecture include long lengths of wire and/or pressure lines to connect the sensors back to the control room, which is expensive and introduces the possibility of faults along the way. Furthermore, each sensor and/or pressure inlet must be manually connected and disconnected each time the engine is moved from one test stand to another, which is a time-consuming and error-prone process.